The Quickie: Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: Anti-abortion members of Congress continue to attack abortion rights and tactics used to thwart 2024 abortion ballot initiatives. 

CONGRESS HASN’T STOPPED “DOING ABORTION LEGISLATION” DESPITE WHAT A GOP PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL HAS TOLD YOU: Over the weekend, a GOP presidential hopeful told Kristen Welker on Meet the Press that “Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation” when pressed on if he would sign a 6-week national abortion ban. And we just have to ask...

If there is one thing the current slim anti-abortion majority in the House is going to do is “do abortion legislation.” In fact, these anti-abortion politicians made attacking abortion rights their first order of business at the beginning of the year. They are so committed to “doing abortion legislation” that they have tried to manipulate the federal appropriations process to force through extreme attacks on sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion rights. And this isn’t just the House, one Senator has even held up crucial military nominations over the issue of abortion. 

This is not new. When the anti-abortion majority had control of the Senate, they pushed harmful bills attacking sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion, and confirmed extreme judges to life-time appointments. 

We must be prepared for the lies anti-abortion lawmakers - including the anti-abortion House majority - will tell. They’ve said what they’ve said, and they’ve done what they’ve done — and we have the receipts, even if they try to cover their records.

 

ANTI-ABORTION ACTORS STOOPING TO NEW LOWS TO KEEP ABORTION OFF THE BALLOT IN 2024: Since the fall of Roe, abortion is undefeated at the ballot box, with the issue remaining top of mind for voters across the country. As advocates in multiple states campaign to put abortion on the ballot in 2024, anti-abortion actors are working overtime to undermine these efforts. Rolling Stone detailed some of these attempts in a feature this week, noting that the resistance to ballot measures is new — and linked to attempts to enact more progressive policies. Some examples from Rolling Stone’s reporting: 

• In Arizona, state law requires that if any signature is invalid on a petition sheet, the entire page must be forfeited. People have been spotted sabotaging the abortion rights effort by signing the petition with fake information, effectively getting 15 signatures thrown out at a time. 
• Missouri Republicans have claimed gross overestimations of what a reproductive freedom ballot measure could cost taxpayers and tried twice to issue misleading ballot language (both attempts were blocked in court).
• Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody petitions the state Supreme Court to halt the proposed reproductive rights initiative, appealing to the conservative-leaning court with what “They basically made very disingenuous legal arguments,” Hélène Barthélemy, staff attorney with the ACLU of Florida, called “very disingenuous legal arguments.” 
• Nevada’s Reproductive Freedom Amendment was declared overbroad and in violation of the state’s single-subject rule and now must head to the state Supreme Court. 

Not all initiatives are meeting such direct backlash. Rolling Stone reports that, in Maryland and Colorado – two states with supportive legislatures – reproductive rights advocates have yet to face any organized pushback. However, they are bracing themselves for other tactics, including intense disinformation campaigns. 

Read more in Rolling Stone.